💣 The Disastrous 118th Congress - MAGA Mike Johnson Saved by Shadow Speaker Hakeem Jeffries

[AndyinPA]

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews ... scal-2024/

WASHINGTON — U.S. House Republicans have released a proposed budget for fiscal 2024 that would effectively force Amtrak “to radically reduce or suspend service on various routes across the nation,” according to Amtrak President Stephen Gardner.

The legislation marked up Wednesday also calls for substantial reductions in infrastructure programs benefitting passenger rail. Its release begins a negotiating process among lawmakers that follows a Memorial Day debt reduction deal hammered out between President Joe Biden and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy.

The table below shows that the bulk of the appropriators’ Amtrak cuts were inflicted on the Northeast Corridor, but because corporate overhead is also allocated to long-distance and state-supported routes, the entire network would be at risk.

[Dave from down under]

Check for recent donations from airlines and coach companies.

[Kendra]

https://www.rawstory.com/jerry-nadler-jim-jordan/

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) blasted House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) for holding hearings in an "alternate universe" to support former President Donald Trump.

During a hearing on Thursday, Nadler told Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan that Jordan had a history of spouting conspiracy theories.

"Mr. Chairman, yesterday, the director of the FBI sat at the witness table for nearly six hours, enduring a steady stream of baseless attacks and conspiracy theories meant to fit a far-right narrative that may resonate on Fox News but that lacks any basis in fact," Nadler said. "Today it is the chair of the Federal Trade Commission's turn to step into the alternate universe that is the House Judiciary Committee under MAGA Republican leadership."

"Unfortunately, I expect that today you will be the target of a barrage of personal attacks and wild accusations about the work of the FTC under your leadership," he added. "Ultimately, Chair Kahn, you will face attacks today because you are doing your job. That is what threatens Republicans the most."

Video at the link.

[Ben-Prime]

https://www.rawstory.com/jerry-nadler-jim-jordan/

Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) blasted House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-OH) for holding hearings in an "alternate universe" to support former President Donald Trump.

During a hearing on Thursday, Nadler told Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan that Jordan had a history of spouting conspiracy theories.

"Mr. Chairman, yesterday, the director of the FBI sat at the witness table for nearly six hours, enduring a steady stream of baseless attacks and conspiracy theories meant to fit a far-right narrative that may resonate on Fox News but that lacks any basis in fact," Nadler said. "Today it is the chair of the Federal Trade Commission's turn to step into the alternate universe that is the House Judiciary Committee under MAGA Republican leadership."

"Unfortunately, I expect that today you will be the target of a barrage of personal attacks and wild accusations about the work of the FTC under your leadership," he added. "Ultimately, Chair Kahn, you will face attacks today because you are doing your job. That is what threatens Republicans the most."

Video at the link.

I'm waiting to see if they drag in the recently resigned Trump-appointed commissioner to testify as to her disagreements with the Chair. In fairness, I have a dog in that fight -- I knew the resignee when we were teenagers. Part of me fears she will testify and some of my greatest childhood memories of what was once one of the defining friendships of the formative years of my life will be destroyed if she walks the party line. But part of me wants to treat it like a potential train wreck from which I simultaneously should and should not turn my gaze.

[RTH10260]

It came out of the sky: UFO claims to get their day in Congress
US House panel to hold first public hearing on extraterrestrial question following whistleblower claim of ‘intact’ alien vehicles

Adam Gabbatt
Fri 21 Jul 2023 11.00 BST

For decades, US politicians have been reluctant to get involved in the topic of UFOs and aliens.

After a series of disclosures in recent months, however, Republicans and Democrats now appear to be lining up to inquire into the question of extraterrestrial life, as the world seems closer than ever to finding out whether we are alone in the universe.

Next week, the House oversight committee will hold its first public hearing as part of its investigation into UFOs, weeks after a whistleblower former intelligence official went public with claims that the government has possession of “intact and partially intact” alien vehicles.

David Grusch’s allegations about the government harboring alien craft – he has since suggested that the US has also encountered “malevolent” alien pilots – sparked the 26 July hearing, and beyond that, appear to have lit a fire under the Washington establishment.

The Republican party has led the initial charge, with a series of claims about extraterrestrial life that, until recently, would have been seen as career-ending.

Tim Burchett, the Republican congressman from Florida who is co-leading the UFO investigation, declared in early July that alien craft possess technology that could “turn us into a charcoal briquette”, while a Republican colleague suggested that extraterrestrial interlopers could actually be representatives of an ancient civilization.

In a briefing on Thursday, Burchett said he and his co-investigator Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican member from Tennessee, had been “stonewalled” by federal officials when asking about UFOs, and prevented from accessing some “information to prove that they do exist”.

“We’ve had a heck of a lot of pushback about this hearing. There are a lot of people who don’t want this to come to light,” he said.

Burchett said the US had evidence of technology that “defies all of our laws of physics”, and angrily railed against a “cover-up” by military officials.

He added: “We’re gonna get to the bottom of it, dadgummit. Whatever the truth may be. We’re done with the cover-up.”



https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... stleblower

[raison de arizona]

House Passes “Hateful” Bill to Defund Schools That Give Asylum Seekers Shelter
The bill targets two top scapegoats for the Republican Party: public schools and asylum seekers.

The House passed a bill this week aimed at barring schools and universities from giving shelter to asylum seekers in a time when members of both major parties are increasing their attacks on migrants seeking asylum in the U.S.

The Schools Not Shelters Act, originally introduced by Republican Rep. Marcus Molinaro (New York), passed the House 222 to 201 on Wednesday, with Republicans joined by four Democrats, Representatives Henry Cuellar (Texas), Susie Lee (Nevada), Mary Peltola (Alaska) and Patrick Ryan (New York) in supporting the bill.

The bill would strip federal funding from public grade schools and universities that provide shelter to asylum seekers, an increasingly vital service as asylum seekers face escalating attacks from Republican leaders in particular. This would, in essence, accomplish two top conservative priorities: It would strip funding from public schools, or at least destabilize their funding, and it would force schools to refuse to help asylum seekers.

Opponents of the bill have condemned it for its cruelty. Democrats dubbed the legislation the “Scapegoating Not Solutions Act” and the “Shutting Out Students Act.”

“Yesterday, Republicans passed a bill in the House that would take away funding from schools if they temporarily house asylum seekers,” said Rep. Cori Bush (D-Missouri) on Thursday. “The GOP is doing what it does best — fearmongering and introducing hateful legislation that promotes bigotry and endangers lives.”

In debate on the bill, Rep. Suzanne Bonamic0i (D-Oregon) said the legislation would “punish public schools and colleges and their students for showing humanity.”

Revoking federal funding from schools would have wide-ranging impacts, affecting programs like Pell Grants and other student aid for higher education, as well as funding for federal disability programs.

The legislation came about after Republicans raised an outcry against an announcement by New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, a Democrat, who announced an initiative in May to help identify sites, including schools, that could offer shelter for immigrants. It is not likely to pass the Democratically-controlled Senate.

https://truthout.org/articles/house-pas ... s-shelter/

[Jim]

It came out of the sky: UFO claims to get their day in Congress

Pubs aren't very intelligent, are they?

Democrat hilariously trolls angry Republican over UFO bill

Congressman Burchettt is very angry that an amendment he filed did not even get a vote.
“Congressman Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.) held a news conference on Thursday with congressional colleagues to announce an upcoming committee hearing and to demand transparency from the federal government over unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs), which are more commonly dubbed ‘UFOs,'” WBIR reported Thursday.

Burchett tried but failed to introduce a “late” amendment, and later “said he was told the amendment was shot down by either the House Intelligence Committee or the ‘intelligence community,’ saying he wasn’t totally sure who knocked it down.”

“This is ridiculous, folks. They do exist or they don’t exist. They keep telling us they don’t exist, but they block every opportunity for us to get ahold of the information,” he said.

He also vented his anger on Twitter.

And, of course, it takes a democrat to explain the facts of life to a dense pub

“What are you talking about?” McGovern tweeted. “It wasn’t the ‘intelligence community,’ you voted to block YOUR OWN amendment. Are YOU part of the coverup?”

Now being a slow and not too intelligent pub, he blames the messenger...

Apparently still confused, Burchett shot back: “Mr. Ranking Member of Rules Committee, perhaps your intern shouldn’t be allowed to run your Twitter account. Find someone who can fact check. This amendment wasn’t even given a vote in Rules. No one had a chance to vote on this amendment. That’s the problem.”

And here comes the democrat's punchline that just buries the pub...

“The problem is that you submitted an amendment, and then you voted for a Rule that blocked your own amendment. That’s why no one had a chance to vote on it. That’s how this works,” he said, schooling Burchett. “Also, I write my tweets myself.”

[RTH10260]

Pubs aren't very intelligent, are they?

Democrat hilariously trolls angry Republican over UFO bill

Congressman Burchettt is very angry that an amendment he filed did not even get a vote.

“This is ridiculous, folks. They do exist or they don’t exist. They keep telling us they don’t exist, but they block every opportunity for us to get ahold of the information,” he said.

If they do not exist, how does one collect information on them to present to stupid members of the House

[Gregg]

Can we call these "The Trailer Park" hearings?

Listen, Skippy, they don't exist in the way you think they do and explaining that to you would take all damn week so I won't. But letting you inside a bunch of the reasons why involves making public a lot of National Security information that we'd rather not.

Area 51 isn't where they keep they aliens, but it IS where they have metric phucktons of stuff that doesn't need to be in your Fox News soundbite factory.

[Foggy]

I do believe there is intelligent life on other planets.

Traveling faster than the speed of light is necessary, in order for one sentient species to be able to visit their nearby neighbors.

If it's possible to build FTL machines, they've already been here.

If'n they've been here, they know better than to try to have an intelligent conversation with our elected leaders.

[Gregg]

As a simple physics problem, transporting one hydrogen atom at the speed of light would consume more energy than all the other atoms in the universe contain among them. But what's science among the Trailer Park Ministry of Anal Probes?

But let's do another problem of very simple topographic math.

Assume time emits from the location of the Big Bang like layers of an onion and time/distance is measured in bands/layers as thick as that time. Got that yet?

Now as a little aside, wonder how thick is the band of human technological awareness, which is at best a few hundred years and more realistically just since the invention of radio. This band will have an outer limit, where we either cook ourselves, blow ourselves up or the sun goes supernova. Possibly this band expands even further when interstellar travel is discovered but otherwise, it's measured in millions of years, isidee the 14 billion year sphere.

Assume next that universe wide, the layer of intelligent life is also thin, but all intelligent life must be a minimum distance out, and that all intelligent life will lie in a sphere, at least this interior diameter from the center. It can be anywhere along this sphere but only observed across he inside of it.

So life night be right next to me, but it's on an arc of that sphere, a very tiny, relatively, sphere.

If life can travel these distances, it involves technology not just beyond our engineering ability. We can't build a type of ship that will do that, because the only one atom burning up all the others problem, so burning energy ain't how to do it. But burning up energy is all we know how to do.

Safe to assume if they can get here, they can probably remain hidden from us. If they don't want to be seen we won't see them, if they do want to be seen they'll land at halftime at the Super Bowl, or if they're not Americans, the World Cup.

Since they haven't, I put it to all that the Anal Probe people are just delusional folks with strange kinks.

QED, Representative Redneck Comer is gonna make a fool of himself, on TV, again for our viewing pleasure.

[raison de arizona]

AG is offering for Weiss to testify about Hunter before the Judiciary Committee.

[Dr. Ken]

What a joke. Republicans trying to expunge Trump's lawful impeachments while trying to create a phony impeachment of Joe Biden

[raison de arizona]

Moar from that lil talk.

McCarthy moves closer to announcing impeachment inquiry. Asked him if Rs have corroborated unverified allegations from FBI informant that Biden engaged in bribery scheme with foreign national as VP. He argued that an impeachment inquiry would allow them to answer those questions

[RTH10260]

How many investigations into Hillary Clinton did the Republicans make and none did yield a result?

[June bug]

How many investigations into Hillary Clinton did the Republicans make and none die yield a result?

But they accomplished just what Kev wanted - dragging her numbers down.

[raison de arizona]

McCarthy again marches to Trump’s tune by invoking Biden impeachment inquiry

The House Republican majority is hitting its stride as a fully weaponized arm of Donald Trump’s bid for a second White House term as it seeks to drag President Joe Biden into a swamp of so far unsubstantiated corruption allegations.

Speaker Kevin McCarthy is for the first time publicly warming to the possibility of an impeachment probe against the president – at a moment when Washington is bracing for a potential third criminal indictment of his predecessor. He first floated the idea on Fox News Monday, then doubled down on Capitol Hill a day later.

“How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry,” the California Republican told reporters Tuesday, although he did not formally announce such a probe.

The speaker’s comments were just the latest sign that the House GOP majority is seeking to create a counter-narrative of corruption focusing on Biden to take the heat off the twice-impeached Trump, who faces the historic prospect of being the first ex-president to be criminally tried as he is running for a new White House term.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/26/politics ... index.html

[Ben-Prime]

McCarthy again marches to Trump’s tune by invoking Biden impeachment inquiry
“How do you get to the bottom of the truth? The only way Congress can do that is go to an impeachment inquiry,” the California Republican told reporters Tuesday, although he did not formally announce such a probe.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/26/politics ... index.html

Thus the Overton Window moves from impeachment being "we accuse the President of this specific thing and we believe we can prove it" to "we accuse the President of some inspecific and inchoate harm and we're going to root around until we find something."

[Suranis]

Which is basically what the Fast and Furious thing turned into, with Republicans demanding a Supeona for everything because if they didn't get it they would have no evidence for anything.

Anyway it wont be enough. CHUNGUS will demand TWO impeachments as otherwise he will still be behind Biden.

[RTH10260]

US conducted ‘multi-decade’ secret UFO program, ex-intelligence official says
Whistleblower David Grusch claims ‘non-human’ beings found as issue of alien life receives highest-profile airing before US Congress

Adam Gabbatt in Washington
Wed 26 Jul 2023 19.07 BST

The US government conducted a “multi-decade” program which collected, and attempted to reverse-engineer, crashed UFOs, a former American intelligence official told a remarkable congressional hearing on Wednesday.

David Grusch, who led analysis of unexplained anomalous phenomena (UAP) within a US Department of Defense agency until 2023, told the House oversight committee in Washington that “non-human” beings had been found, as the issue of alien life received its highest-profile airing to date.

The hearing was prompted by claims from Grusch in June that the government was secretly harboring alien space craft. On Wednesday, Grusch repeated some of those claims – although not all – under oath.

“I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program, to which I was denied access,” Grusch told the committee.

The hearing attracted intense global interest, and provided speculation and claims that the US is hiding evidence of alien life and technology – mixed with large doses of skepticism.

Grusch filed a whistleblower complaint in 2022. He said that in his role in the government he had been charged with investigating what military, defense and other agencies knew about aliens and alien craft, but alleged he had been prevented from accessing secret government UFO programs.

Speaking on Wednesday, Grusch said he has faced “very brutal” retaliation as a result of his allegations.

“It hurt me both professionally and personally,” Grusch said.

Under questioning, Grusch confirmed that he had knowledge of “people who have been harmed or injured” in the course of government efforts to conceal UFO information.

Asked by an oversight committee member if he had “feared for his life”, Grusch replied: “Yes definitely.”

Grusch added: “I am hopeful that my actions will ultimately lead to a positive outcome of increased transparency.”

Grusch’s allegation, aired in interviews with the Debrief and NewsNation, that the federal government was hiding this evidence of alien craft from Congress sparked a firestorm in June, prompting the Republican-led oversight committee to launch an immediate investigation.

Since then, the intrigue around what evidence the government has, or doesn’t have, around UFOs has only intensified.




https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... vid-grusch

[keith]

Maybe its just the cynicism in me, but I think that squirrel corpses and even squashed scorpions would constitute 'non-human biologics' wouldn't they?

[Gregg]

“I was informed, in the course of my official duties, of a multi-decade UAP crash retrieval and reverse-engineering program, to which I was denied access,” Grusch told the committee.

Who informed you? Let's get him in here. You heard bupkus, rumors, bullshit.

What I read from the first statement is "I heard this rumor around the water cooler at work, about a program to which I was denied access"

This is real trailer park stuff, Congressman Cornpone. Get Cletus in with his paintings next and lets roll this along, we need to get to the mothership and The Greys by next Friday.

[Ben-Prime]

I imagine this guy's co-workers rolling his eyes at him and saying "Oh, yeah, Dave, there was a big alien party at Hanger 15 the other day. We're going to have another next week. No, you're not invited." And him taking this -- both a joke and hearsay -- and making it his testimony.

[Dave from down under]

This is what happens when you don’t let the butt of the joke in on it..

[Suranis]

Ir they DID let him in on the joke, but he thinks they have been told to cover up what they let slip, because he is a moron.